Archive for the ‘Dutch Kills’ Category
shocking, unlighted, and fear haunted abysses
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Ennui of a nearly narcotic character has paralyzed your humble narrator for an interval of several weeks, a period which is at an end. Stumbling in the manner of some morphine or hashish addict across the masonry clad streets, my mood has been affected by both growing poverty and certain darker influences. Applications of various substances- derivates of the cocoa or coffee bean- have been ineffective in forcing me into a bright and waken state. Reduced to a quivering and passive “experiencer”, a cancerous nugget of self hatred grows in my heart, and has shocked me back to the waking world. Anger is an energy, as Johnny Rotten pointed out in his seminal “rise” ditty, and I walk amongst you once more.
New perspectives are called for, if the antiquarian mysteries which haunt our communities are ever to be revealed, and I no longer care about the consequences.
Let “them” quiver and tremble, for we are beginning the winter session, Lords and Ladies, at this- your Newtown Pentacle.
from wikipedia
A sett, usually the plural setts and in some places called a Belgian block, often incorrectly called “cobblestone”, is a broadly rectangular quarried stone used originally for paving roads, today a decorative stone paving used in landscape architecture. A sett is distinct from a cobblestone by being quarried or shaped to a regular form, whereas a cobblestone is generally naturally occurring. Streets paved with setts are highlights in several cycling competitions such as the final Champs-Élysées stage of the Tour de France and the Paris–Roubaix road race as riding upon them is technically more challenging than riding on asphalt. Notable roads paved with setts include Vicars’ Close, Wells, much of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and the set of Coronation Street. In New York City the meat-packing district retains such streets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Those of you who have been following this periodical recognize the descriptions of these moody moments of navel gazing which a humble narrator is unable to forestall or avoid, and which curiously seem tied to seasonal variance in light and temperature. During these intervals, postings become scarce and difficult to perform, as despite the richness of environment and staccato nature of events- I cannot summon the motivation to write and become as everyone else- ordinary and voiceless. Professional writers describe this vacuity as becoming “written out”, and prescribe a period of reading and research to reignite the hearth. I’ve been following this prescription, and just this morning- the hellish green flame of wonderment has once again been kindled.
As I said: “Back in session”.
from wikipedia
The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) completed construction of the yard in 1910. At that time Sunnyside was the largest coach yard in the world, occupying 192 acres (0.78 km2) and containing 25.7 mi (41.4 km) of track. The yard served as the main train storage and service point for PRR trains serving New York City. It is connected to Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan by the East River Tunnels. The Sunnyside North Yard initially had 45 tracks with a capacity of 526 cars. The South Yard had 45 tracks with a 552 car capacity.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Presented for your amusement today, this shot is from the Newtown Creek Cruise of October 24th, which ended up being quite well attended.
Bernard Ente (of Working Harbor Committee, Newtown Creek Alliance) and your humble narrator handled the narration. A small coterie of guest speakers (including Jeffrey Kroessler, Tom Outerbridge, and others) allowed us infrequent breaks from the microphone- during one of which I snuck away and captured this image. Fairly close to the Brooklyn coastline of the Newtown Creek, it was nevertheless captured from the water- that’s the Pulaski Bridge dividing the horizon, with Empire State and Chrysler Buildings framing the sky in the manner of some enormous tuning fork.
from wikipedia
Before the nineteenth century urbanization and industrialization of the surrounding neighborhoods, Newtown Creek was a longer and shallower tidal waterway, and wide enough that it contained islands. It drained parts of what are now the neighborhoods of Bushwick, Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn; and Maspeth, Ridgewood, Sunnyside and Long Island City in Queens. During the second half of the nineteenth century it became a major industrial waterway, bounded along most of its length by retaining walls, the shipping channel maintained by dredging. The Montauk Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, mainly a freight line, runs along the North bank. A liquid natural gas port is under construction on the South bank, between Kingsland and Greenpoint Avenues, Whale Creek, and the main stream of Newtown Creek.
In 2007, residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn and the New York State Attorney General’s Office filed lawsuits regarding the Greenpoint Oil Spill that contained more than twice the oil of the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
On September 27, 2010, the United States Environmental Protection Agency designated Newtown Creek as a Superfund site, preparing the way for evaluation and environmental remediation of the stream. Environment advocacy groups supported the decision.
from some point in space
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent travels and travails, which I’ll be describing in some detail in the coming days, have been consuming me. Antiquarian studies, which normally bring joy and excitement to one such as myself, are instead feeding a black dog nipping at my heels. The arrival of seasonally appropriate cold weather shatters the illusion I project of vigor and health, and instead reveals a weakened and tired old man whose ease of movement and comfort is shattered by lower temperatures. A huddled mass of insulating garments, what you perceive as a windblown pile of rag and filth often reveals itself to be me.
I’m all ‘effed up.
from nytimes.com
The Roswell P. Flower estate sold last week to the Borden Realty Company, a subsidiary concern of the Degnon Terminal Improvement Company, 362 lots in the sunken meadows south of Jackson Avenue, in Long Island City, and extending to Dutch Kills Creek and Newtown Creek, at prices ranging, it is said, from $1,000 to $1,500 each.
The Degnon Terminal Company has already invested from $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 in Long Island City meadows and meadows at the head of Flushing Bay, in the towns of Flushing and Newtown.
The meadows are to be filled in with the earth taken from the Belmont tunnel, and the Dutch kills Canal and Flushing Bay are to be dredged.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Recent opportunities and accesses to certain locations normally forbidden to the general public have drawn me out from HQ, however, and that which I have witnessed is the terrible spectacular of those sky flung monoliths and hybrid pestilences which typify the City of Greater New York in these dawning years of the 21st century. Gaze in despair upon the waste meadows of Dutch Kills, from high above.
from trainsarefun.com
Just south of Sunnyside Yards is Degnon Terminal, operated by the Degnon Realty & Terminal Improvement Company. A subsidiary, Degnon Terminal Railroad Corporation operated a switching terminal. It received and delivered cars from and to connections and switched them to the various industries, also the reverse operation. This carrier’s only railroad connection was with the Montauk Cutoff of the Long Island Rail Road at Pearson Street [Hunterspoint Avenue], Long Island City. Degnon constructed its tracks about 1919, although land reclamation and grading began about 1907.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
My vantage was from within the cyclopean Degnon Terminal, a once mighty industrial center and railhead which has been transmogrified into a community college. The occasion which brought me here will be explored in later postings, but since the ennui under which your humble narrator currently suffers precludes any notion of positive thought, it was decided to just display these images for your consideration and not engage in some some long winded and depressing monolog about it.
from nydesigns.org
The NYDesigns staff know that summer’s truly over when, after two introspective weeks in a silent fructarian monastery in Appalachia, we spy the godzilla-sized, tomato-red IDCNY sign halfway through the 7-minute walk from the trains at Courthouse Square. We share the building with LaGuardia College CUNY and E. Gluck Corporation, a watch manufacturing company.
In 1908, however, the “Thousand Window Bakery,” a best practice factory showcase for the Loose-Wiles Biscuit company originally of Kansas City was the building’s sole tenant. All 10 stories of the building housed production, sales and management as well as 2500 employees in a Fabian, sun-infused proletarian paradise, complete with a lending library and a clubhouse. Trading under the name Sunshine Biscuits, the cookies were baked in the shape of Popeye, Olive, Swee’pea, Wimpy, etc. and distributed in tin boxes which are now modestly priced collectibles. Animal crackers originated here. Now a subsidiary of Keebler, Sunshine is now best known for producing the Cheez-It brand of snack crackers.
The “Thousand Window Bakery” was one piece within the larger industrial park of Degnon Terminal, the brainchild of Michael Degnon, entrepreneur and railyard contractor for the Sunnyside Yards, which abut the building’s northwestern facade. Degnon Terminal was attractive to companies including the Packard Auto Company, Ever Ready, and Chicle (of Chiclets gum) because of the ease in shipping just-manufactured goods via rail straight to distributors.The Sunnyside rail lines haven’t seen any traffic since 1989 and the industrial occupants have long moved on to more affordable real estate climes. Sunshine left in the mid ’60s.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The water you see in the center of these photographs is the logical end of Dutch Kills, a tributary of the oft maligned Newtown Creek. The first bridge you see is the Hunter’s Point Avenue Bridge, which nears its 100th year of service to the municipality in uncommented anonymity (not if I have anything to say about that), and the large white structure is the Queens Midtown Expressway section of the Long Island Expressway which hurtles high over the empty corridor of long Island City.
Beyond is infinite Brooklyn, with the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Facility just left of center in centuried Greenpoint.
from nyc.gov
Long Island City is comprised of five separate neighborhoods: Ravenswood, Astoria, Steinway, Sunnyside, and Hunter’s Point. Engine Company No. 258 is located on 47th Street in Hunter’s Point, about halfway between Newtown Creek and the Queensboro Bridge. Though someearly nineteenth-century legal documents refer to the area as Long Island Farms or Long Island City, it was not until the 1850s that the current name was widely used. Popularized by a local newspaper, the Long Island Star, when the five villages were incorporated as an independent municipality in 1870, the neighborhood was officially named. Hunter’s Point became the commercial and political center of the new city, served by the Long Island Railroad at 2nd Street, near the East River, and multiple ferries to Manhattan. The seat of Queens County moved here from Jamaica, and two years later, in 1872, the New York Supreme Court Building for Queens County (reconstructed 1904-8, a designated New York City Landmark) was built on Jackson Avenue, now called Court Square. Long Island City grew quickly and the population tripled between 1875 and 1900. Among the various houses built in the area, a fine group survives on 45th Avenue, between 21st and 23rd Streets, in the Hunter’s Point Historic District. Faced in brick, brownstone, and Tuckahoe marble, these Italianate, Second Empire,and Neo-Grec structures, were collectively known as “White Collar Row.” Hunter’s Point had nearly 18,000 residents in 1905, a number that has never been exceeded.
Queens became a borough of Greater New York in 1898 and Long Island City became theseat of the borough president, with offices in the Hackett Building (c. 1885) on Jackson Avenue until 1916. Various transit projects that proved critical to real estate development in Queens were completed during this period, including the opening of the Queensboro Bridge (1909, a designated New York City Landmark), tunnels linking Manhattan with the vast Sunnyside Yards (1910), and the beginning of regular IRT subway service (1915) to Corona, and later, Flushing. Access to the general area was greatly improved, attracting large factories and warehouses that benefited from spur lines that allowed freight cars to travel directly to the loading docks. Various examples can be found in the Degnon Terminal area, along Thomson Avenue, where the Adams Chewing Gum and Loose Wiles Sunshine Biscuit companies located in the 1910s. These improvements, however, had a downside, creating barriers that isolated Hunter’s Point from the rest of the borough, while making it easier for commuters to reach new residential districts to the east, in Sunnyside, Jackson Heights, and other neighborhoods.
Superfund me
– photo by Mitch Waxman
LO, BEHOLD, and TREMBLE… for the Newtown Pentacle is back in session…
Over several of the last few years, agents and officials of the Federal Government have conducted a strange and secretive investigation into certain conditions within and around the ancient New York waterway called the Newtown Creek.
The public first learned of it in 2009, when a vast series of public meetings and pronouncements were offered by agents of the Environmental Protection Agency which confirmed and introduced the news that the ancient corridor of industry and forbidden history called the Newtown Creek was being considered for inclusion on the Federal Superfund list.
This listing would bestow extraordinary powers over the waterway, and ultimate authority, to the Federal Government. Effectively, the 3.8 mile long border of Brooklyn and Queens with its enormous number of crumbling bulkheads, worm eaten piers, and supposedly empty warehouses are now the responsibility of the G-Men. Uninquiring souls let the occurrence pass as one of the major developments in a spasmodic war on environmental pollution and the toxic legacy of the industrial revolution.
from epa.gov
Release date: 09/27/2010
Contact Information: John Senn (212) 637-3667, senn.john@epa.gov
(New York, N.Y.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today added Newtown Creek in New York City to its Superfund National Priorities List of the country’s most hazardous waste sites. The final listing will allow EPA to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the creek to determine what remedial actions need to be implemented. Various sediment and surface water samples have been taken along the creek. Potentially harmful contaminants such as pesticides, metals and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have been detected in Newtown Creek along with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are potentially harmful contaminants that can easily evaporate into the air.
“The toxic pollution in Newtown Creek is more than a century in the making. EPA is placing Newtown Creek on the Superfund list to ensure the creek receives a thorough cleanup,” said EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck. “Newtown Creek is a key urban waterway, which provides recreational and economic resources to many communities. Throughout the investigation and cleanup, we will work closely with the communities along the creek to achieve a revitalization of this heavily-contaminated urban waterway.”
EPA proposed Newtown Creek be added to the Superfund NPL list in September 2009. EPA received and considered public comments on its proposal before making its final decision.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
On Monday the 27th of September in this year of 2010, the EPA announced the Superfund listing of Newtown Creek would be moving forward.
Interesting coincidences abound for this date:
The first Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line in 1908 in Detroit, Einstein had his E=MC2 formula published for the first time in 1905, Crete fell to the Turks in 1669, and the Jesuits were granted a Papal charter in 1540. The Warren Commission released its report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1964, the Ottoman Siege of Vienna began in 1529, the Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, and Thomas Nast was born in 1840.
It is also 110 years and 19 days after this report appeared in the NY Times, and some 122 years and 11 days since this report appeared in the same publication.
also from epa.gov
EPA had previously responded to requests by members of Congress to evaluate specific sites along Newtown Creek by publishing a September 2007 report that contained a review of past and ongoing work being conducted to address the Greenpoint oil spill as well as recommendations regarding future work to assist with the spill response. The state of New York referred the site to EPA due to the complex nature of the contamination in the creek. EPA’s Superfund study and cleanup are expected to focus on the sediments in the creek and on identifying and addressing sources of pollution that continue to contribute to the contamination.
Newtown Creek is part of the core area of the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary, which has been designated by EPA as an “estuary of national significance.” Despite the ongoing pollution problems, some residents currently use the creek for recreational purposes such as kayaking, while others eat the fish they catch from the creek.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
According to statements rendered by Government representatives, the actual work on the remediation project is not scheduled to begin in earnest for several months (if not years), as a period of further study and evaluation of the endemic situation before the final formulation of their plans to ferret out and eradicate all that there is which may be buried down there.
The government plans on removing hundreds of metric tons of the sediment which lines the bottom of the Newtown Creek. Privileged to have been included on the conference call during which EPA announced their decision to the third estate, your humble narrator queried EPA personnel as to the methodology of its removal (terrestrial industries versus maritime) and whether they had determined a probable destination for the contaminant laced material they intend to dredge out.
Both questions seemed to have been unexpected, and they reported that answers will be readily uncovered when the final action plan is unveiled sometime in the near future.
additionally, from epa.gov
In the mid -1800s, the area adjacent to the 3.8-mile Newtown Creek was one of the busiest hubs of industrial activity in New York City. More than 50 industrial facilities were located along its banks, including oil refineries, petrochemical plants, fertilizer and glue factories, sawmills, and lumber and coal yards. The creek was crowded with commercial vessels, including large boats bringing in raw materials and fuel and taking out oil, chemicals and metals. In addition to the industrial pollution that resulted from all of this activity, the city began dumping raw sewage directly into the water in 1856. During World War II, the creek was one of the busiest ports in the nation. Some factories and facilities still operate along it, and various adjacent contaminated sites have contributed to its contamination. Today, as a result of its industrial history, including countless spills, Newtown Creek is badly polluted.
In the early 1990s, New York State declared that Newtown Creek was not meeting water quality standards under the Clean Water Act. Since then, a number of government-sponsored cleanups of the creek have taken place. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has sampled sediment and surface water at a number of locations along the creek since 1980. In early 2009, EPA sampled the sediment throughout the length of Newtown Creek and its tributaries. EPA will review existing information about Newtown Creek to develop a plan for further investigation.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The professional press also on the call seemed more interested in the Gowanus Canal, how the Mayor felt about the announcement, and grew fixated on the cost of the cleanup effort. EPA clearly spelt out that its budgeting process has barely begun, and they can neither supply a final cost estimate or time table at this early date. This is actually the logical course, as the secrets of the Newtown Creek must- as always- bubble up and reveal themselves to those who stare deeply into its occluded depths.
And, in their own time, all the poisons in the mud will leach out.
and also, from epa.gov
EPA conducted an Expanded Site Investigation (ESI) of Newtown Creek in 2009 as part of the Hazard Ranking System scoring process for NPL listing under Superfund. Based on the ESI, which was focused on Newtown Creek itself and not its tributaries, EPA concluded that metals, volatile organic compounds, and semi-volatile organic compounds (including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls) were present in Creek sediments at elevated concentrations. The variety and distribution of the detected contaminants suggests that they originated from a variety of sources. Previous environmental investigations of Newtown Creek, or specific portions of the Creek, also disclosed that sediments in Newtown Creek are contaminated by a wide variety of hazardous substances. Environmental investigations of upland parcels adjacent to or nearby the Creek have disclosed contamination of those parcels by hazardous substances similar to hazardous substances found in sediments in Newtown Creek.
Project Firebox 10
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Woe to the FDNY Firebox which finds itself on the surly triangular corners that swirl about Northern Blvd. This elegantly destroyed specimen languishes perilously close to Steinway Street’s transmogrification into 39th street near the Standard Motor Products Building, specifically 36th avenue and 41st street.
As a point of interest, this is the eastern extant of 36th avenue, with its western terminus obviated by the Roosevelt Island Bridge at the East River.
wonderful epics of a nameless city
– photo by Mitch Waxman
This is not the world you know, this unmentioned and currently undefended border between Brooklyn and Queens, where the requiescant waters of the Newtown Creek gurgle and splash. Beyond the Pulaski Bridge- where an observable and otherworldly colour stains animal, and structure, and vegetable- the heavy industries which conspire to sustain the shining city of Manhattan spread out under the Newtown sun.
from nycedc.com
The Newtown Creek according to the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) had a listing of 26 piers with a total of 8,483 feet of berthing space. However, only 16 piers with a total of 4,986 feet of berthing space are in use by 12 firms. Furthermore, six firms are using their 1,952 feet of pier berthing space and waterfront facilities occasionally only. The waterfront activity is primarily for ship and barge.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Along its path, the bulkheaded shorelines of the Newtown Creek reveal the rotted timber and risible decay associated with exposure to the poisons and refuse of the vast human hive, and its associated infestations. The waters have been observed, personally, to host a surprising variety of life forms- including a dizzying array of non vertebrates. Within the cemented and artificial shores, internal voids and long abandoned pipelines shelter teeming populations of rodent forms, and unguessable possibilities present themselves when discussing what else may be hiding down there, in flooded cellar and forgotten basement.
from wikipedia
The creek begins near the intersection of 47th Street and Grand Avenue on the Brooklyn-Queens border 40°43′06″N 73°55′27″W at the intersection of the East Branch and English Kills. It empties into the East River at 40°44′14″N 73°57′40″W (2nd Street and 54th Avenue in Long Island City) opposite Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan at 26th Street. Its waterfront, and that of its tributaries Dutch Kills, Whale Creek, Maspeth Creek and English Kills, are heavily industrialized.
The creek has no natural waterflows. Its outgoing flow of 14,000 million gallons/year consists of combined sewer overflow, urban runoff, raw domestic sewage, and industrial wastewater. Being estuarine, the creek is largely stagnant. Since there is no current in the creek, sludge has congealed into a 15-foot thick layer of “black mayonnaise” on the creek bed.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Just after passing the yawning mouth of the malign Dutch Kills, one encounters a scrap metal operation, which operates a car shredding operation. The great mill utilizes the “Newtown Creek Dock” and is owned and operated by the Hugo Neu Schnitzer East Co.
In a nutshell, the way that things work is:
Hugo Neu Schnitzer East Co. (HNSEC from this point) receives the metal glass and plastic collected by the DSNY and private contractors at its Hunts Point bulkheads in the Bronx, New Jersey, and Brooklyn…
- HNSEC then barges certain materials to Newtown Creek, where bulk metal is separated from the less valuable plastic and virtually worthless glass.
- A preliminary sorting of plastic and glass is performed, while the bulk metal is loaded onto barges.
- The metals are shipped by barge to other facilities, and offered for sale on the worldwide commodities markets.
According to those principalities who authored and designed this system, it reduces the per ton cost of processing the waste stream as well as reducing the reliance on automotive conveyance for it and nourishes the maritime industry.
from a nytimes.com article of 2004
One of the toughest challenges with recycling has always been finding markets for the recycled goods, whose resale can then help defray the costs of the program. In announcing a 20-year recycling contract yesterday, the Bloomberg administration said it had solved that problem by encouraging a company to find those markets.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
As is the way of things, Hugo Neu merged with Sim Group in 2005, and formed one of the largest recycling conglomerates in the world. According to our friends at Habitatmap, whose stout adherence to the scientific method and stalwart advocacy of the unvarnished truth has both terrified and impressed your humble narrator, the composite company- SimsMetal- is the largest single source of air pollution to be found along the modern Newtown Creek.
from simsmm.com
Sims Metal Management was originally established in 1917 by Albert Sims, a Sydney-based recycled metals dealer. The business was incorporated as Albert G. Sims Limited in 1928 and was renamed Simsmetal Limited in 1968.
In 1970, it merged with Consolidated Metal Products Limited and the merged ASX-listed company was named Sims Consolidated Limited. In 1979, Sims Consolidated Limited was acquired by Peko-Wallsend Limited and subsequently delisted. Sims Consolidated Limited was then acquired by North Limited (previously known as North Broken Hill Holdings Limited, and then North Broken Hill Peko Limited) in 1988. In 1989, North Limited sold the business to Elders Resources NZFP Limited, a diversified resources company.
In 1990, Carter Holt Harvey Limited made a successful takeover bid for Elders Resources NZFP Limited and divested that company’s non-forestry businesses, which included Sims. Sims changed its name to Simsmetal Limited in 1990 and relisted on the ASX in 1991. Simsmetal Limited changed its name to Sims Group Limited in 2003.
Sims Metal Management’s corporate strategy includes leading industry consolidation through acquisitions. Over a number of years, with experience gained from numerous international acquisitions, Sims Metal Management has established strict acquisition criteria. The acquisition criteria require that any acquisition target holds the number one or number two market position, delivers access to domestic and international customers, offers a sound platform for future growth and, above all else, will likely enhance shareholder value. The acquisition criteria have underpinned Sims Metal Management’s strong track record of international expansion.
In October 2005, Sims Group Limited merged with the recycling businesses of Hugo Neu Corporation, a privately owned U.S. corporation. The merger created a new ASX listed company named Sims Group Limited, which is traded under the ASX code “SGM.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
I am told by knowledgeable sources that much of this scrap metal will eventually find its way to the mercantile courts of far away Asia, with the bulk of it headed to the smokestacks of China. This is less recycling and waste disposal than it is mining, if one actually takes a step back and looks at it.
from wikipedia
The scrap industry contributed $65 billion in 2006 and is one of the few contributing positively to the U.S. balance of trade, exporting $15.7 billion in scrap commodities in 2006. This imbalance of trade has resulted in rising scrap prices during 2007 and 2008 within the United States.[2] Scrap recycling also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and conserves energy and natural resources. For example, scrap recycling diverts 145,000,000 short tons (129,464,286 long tons; 131,541,787 t) of materials away from landfills. Recycled scrap is a raw material feedstock for 2 out of 3 pounds of steel made in the U.S., for 60% of the metals and alloys produced in the U.S., for more than 50% of the U.S. paper industry’s needs, and for 33% of U.S. aluminum. Recycled scrap helps keep air and water cleaner by removing potentially hazardous materials and keeping them out of landfills.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Frequently observed on the East River, these barges of shredded steel and metal maintain a regular schedule back and forth from the Newtown Creek. This particular barge is the 886 gross ton Cape Lucy, a 146 foot long freight vessel operated by the Inland Barge Corporation, and constructed by Bethlehem Steel in 1953.
Always fascinated by minutia, your humble narrator wonders if this barge is a “leave behind” from the construction of the Pulaski Bridge by the self same Bethlehem Steel in 1953.
from nyc.gov
In 1881, the New York City Department of Street Cleaning was created in response to the public uproar over litter-lined streets and disorganized garbage collection. Originally called the Department of Street Cleaning, the agency took over waste responsibilities from the New York City Police Department. In 1933, the name was changed to the Department of Sanitation.
Throughout the 1880’s, 75% of NYC’s waste was dumped into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1895, Commissioner George Waring instituted a waste management plan that eliminated ocean dumping and mandated recycling. Household waste was separated into three categories: food waste, which was steamed and compressed to eventually produce grease (for soap products) and fertilizer; rubbish, from which paper and other marketable materials were salvaged; and ash, which along with the nonsalable rubbish was landfilled. The Police Department, under the direction of its Commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, enforced the recycling law.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Heavy equipment and esoteric machinery is always on display at this location, and it attracts no small amount of attention from area photographic enthusiasts. Proximity to the Newtown Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant Nature Walk, with its wide open sight lines and panoramic scope, no doubt aids in the fame of this place. These shots, however, were captured from onboard a boat which was plying the volatile surface of the Newtown Creek.
from wikipedia
Critics dispute the net economic and environmental benefits of recycling over its costs, and suggest that proponents of recycling often make matters worse and suffer from confirmation bias. Specifically, critics argue that the costs and energy used in collection and transportation detract from (and outweigh) the costs and energy saved in the production process; also that the jobs produced by the recycling industry can be a poor trade for the jobs lost in logging, mining, and other industries associated with virgin production; and that materials such as paper pulp can only be recycled a few times before material degradation prevents further recycling. Proponents of recycling dispute each of these claims, and the validity of arguments from both sides has led to enduring controversy.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Weirdly organic, the Sennebogen hydraulic loaders which effortlessly move the scrap from land to barge seem to be a favored item for the scrap industry to purchase (and Sims Metal in particular), valued for its mechanical advantages and engineering accumen. Sennebogen, like the fabled Steinway clan which has left such an indelible stamp on the surrounding communities, is a German corporation operated by a single family and founded by an enigmatic sire.
from sennebogen-na.com
RICHMOND, CA – The existing pedestal crane at the 18-acre Sims Metal Management scrap metal yard in Richmond, California had become a bit of a production liability for Jesse Garcia, Sims NW Equipment Manager. Repairs to the pedestal crane were difficult and Garcia often found himself having to lease replacement equipment to keep up production on the yard’s shear when the crane went down. When it came time to replace the crane, Garcia chose a SENNEBOGEN 840 R special, a purpose-built material handler that gives him the mobility and problem-free reliability and uptime he was seeking.
“Metal on metal”
“A scrap yard is a tough environment – it’s constant metal on metal. You need dependable equipment that is built for this application. SENNEBOGEN machines are purpose-built for handling scrap metal, they’re not just retrofitted excavators,” says Garcia. “Our tracked SENNEBOGEN 840 R special is perfect for this application. We can move it in and out for quick, easy maintenance, and should the shear go down, we can utilize it elsewhere in the yard.”
– photo by Mitch Waxman
Forgotten by modernity, even your humble narrator had to consult with one of the “Rabbi’s” to double confirm that this dock was originally the location of the “Manure Dock”, where Manhattan’s human waste products, animal carcasses, and organic waste would be barged to.
Journalists of the era referred to it as the “Offal dock“.
Some of the redolant cargo would be shipped untreated to points East by the LIRR to be utilized as fertilizer on the bountiful farms which once typified the eastern counties, and some percentage of it was processed by local commercial rendering operations owned by the likes of Conrad Wessel and Peter Cooper who saw the rotting filth as a raw material for various food products- aspic, isenglass, and gelatin amongst others. The remnants of that process, which involved the usage of high pressure steam and other state of the art victorian technologies, were further processed into glues, waxes, and potent acids.
from wikipedia
Where a cargo is coarser in size than minerals, commonly for scrap metal, then an orange-peel grab may be used instead of a shell. These have six or eight segments of “peel” independently hinged around a central core. They are better able to grab at an uneven load, rather than just scooping at small pieces. If the load is made of long thin pieces, a grab may also be able to carry far more than a single “grabful” at one time.
Although orange-peel grabs may be hung from cables on a jib, they’re also commonly mounted directly onto a jib. This is more suitable for grabbing at awkward loads that might otherwise tend to tip a hanging grab over. They may also use hydraulics to control the segments rather than weight and hoist cables.
– photo by Mitch Waxman
The concept of recycling is nothing new, here in the megalopolis of New York, and then as now- it was the Newtown Creek and its surrounding communities that absorbed and absolved Manhattan’s sins. The stink, as reported in the late 19th century, that arose from this section of the Creek was legendary even to those hardened by close quartered tenement conditions and the press of an unventilated and crowded city which counted its draft animals in the hundreds of thousands.
Imagine a hot August day in Manhattan, 100 years ago, and that same day… on a slick of oily water some 4 miles long that defined the undefended border between the cities of Long Island City, Newtown, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and Williamsburg.
Pictured above is the DonJon towing Tug Peter Andrew, part of the DonJon Marine fleet that handles the metal and other recyclables trade from Newtown Creek to and from the Newtown Creek to the other links in the waste stream scattered about the New York Harbor archipelago. Photo is from last year, and was shot on the East River.
from donjon.com
Donjon Marine Co., Inc. offers the marine community full-service solutions to meet your every need in the field of marine salvage, dredging, material recycling and related services. Founded in 1964 by Mr. J. Arnold Witte, Donjon’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Donjon Marine’s principal business activities were marine salvage, marine transportation, and related services. Today Donjon Marine is a true provider of multifaceted marine services. Donjon’s controlled expansion into related businesses such as dredging, ferrous and non-ferrous recycling and heavy lift services are a natural progression, paralleling our record of solid technical and cost-effective performance.
The Newtown Pentacle 